Congress shortchanges the Louisiana coast: An editorial

The $35.6 million for Louisiana coastal restoration projects that President Obama included last year in his proposed 2011 budget is only a sliver of what it will take to reverse decades of coastal wetlands loss -- but it is at least a start.

Times-Picayune archiveIn 2008, a federal-state project was undertaken to restore more than two square miles of marsh in the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge by dredging sediment from Lake Pontchartrain near Bayou Lacombe and piping it into the Goose Point/Point Platte marsh area.

That's why it's frustrating that this modest appropriation is coming under attack in Congress. A proposed energy and water bill in the House would ban any new construction starts by the Army Corps of Engineers. The White House says that move will zero out money in the president's budget that would pay for the first phase of ecosystem reconstruction in Louisiana.

"This legislation represents (the) commitment of the Republican majority to restoring restraint and responsibility to the appropriations process in a time when we cannot spend as we used to,'' Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky said.

But restoring fiscal responsibility and restoring Louisiana's coast are not mutually exclusive. In fact, failing to address Louisiana's coastal erosion crisis now will ensure continuing wetlands loss -- to the detriment of this state and the entire country.

Louisiana is losing 25 square miles of coastal wetlands every year. The culprits include natural forces such as subsidence and storms but also human activity like leveeing of the Mississippi River and cutting canals through marshes for oil and gas exploration.

Wetlands loss hurts the entire country. Louisiana's wetlands produce a third of the nation's seafood and supply much of this country's domestic energy. Our coast is home to the country's largest port system. All of those national resources are more vulnerable because wetlands, which serve as critical buffers against storm surge, have been devastated. The lives and property of Louisianians are also at greater risk.

Protecting these assets should be a national priority. Lawmakers who dismiss restoration money as wasteful spending are being terribly shortsighted. Restoring Louisiana's coast is the responsible thing to do, and the fact that this money was included in President Obama's budget was significant. It marked the first time that the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem program, first authorized by Congress in 2007, was slated to get federal construction dollars.

The Office of Management and Budget says that the administration considers it counterproductive to cancel an "important new program to reverse damage to the coastal Louisiana ecosystem.''

Counterproductive is an apt description, but Rep. Cedric Richmond was on target, too. He called the Energy and Water funding bill a "bad joke,'' because it "does not redress decades of environmental erosion.''

This isn't the first time this proposed spending has encountered opposition from lawmakers who don't seem to understand why coastal restoration matters.

Back in March, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, who chairs the House energy and water appropriations subcommittee, asked why the corps was focusing on ecosystem restoration instead of more traditional areas, such as dredging shipping channels.

"Why do environmental projects seem to be the top focus,'' he asked. "There aren't enough dredging problems out there, so you have to go looking for more ways to spend that money?"

But ecosystem projects, which include efforts to restore the Florida Everglades, the California Bay-Delta, the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay as well as Louisiana's coast make up only 18 percent of the corps' budget.

The House is proposing $30.6 billion in spending, which includes $1 billion for dredging and repair of navigational and flood control devices that were damaged during recent flooding. Louisianians certainly wouldn't want to see dredging sacrificed. In fact, some Louisiana lawmakers are hoping that the president will request that money as part of an emergency spending bill so it will be available before the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.

But Louisiana shouldn't have the future of its coast sacrificed to budget-cutting zeal that misses the big picture. Restoring our coast isn't a frivolous enterprise or an effort to make up work for the corps. Louisiana has lost 2,300 square miles of coastal land in the past 80 years, and experts say that there is a limited window of time to stop and reverse that loss.

A report on long-term Gulf Coast recovery by Oxfam and the Center for American Progress made the stakes clear. Louisiana has 40 percent of the wetlands in the continental United States but experiences about 80 percent of all wetland losses, it said. "Without a proactive plan to save and restore these wetlands, by 2050 one-third of coastal Louisiana will have vanished into the Gulf of Mexico.''

That's why Congress should make this small start toward funding the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem program and also why it's so important to direct more of the BP oil spill fines to the areas where damage occurred.

Rep. Rogers says that his committee "has taken a hard look at each and every line in this bill'' to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent where they provide the most benefit to the American people instead of on unaffordable or non-performing programs.

It would be wrong, however, to suggest that Louisiana coastal restoration isn't a benefit to the American people. The numbers, from seafood consumed to energy produced, argue otherwise. There are many things this country can't afford. Losing its wetlands is one of them.